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Somewhere in the early-to-mid-90s my parents’ reign of oppressive television censorship ended and I was at last allowed to actually watch the television shows I read about in the Sunday Times and Entertainment Weekly. (Rarely do I watch a show without reading about it first.) Furthermore, due to a series of tragically unfortunate personal life events between ’93 and ’95, I spent a lot of time during those years lying on the couch wishing I was somebody else.

via hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com

And there was the television set, right in front of me! I have never, before or since, cared about as many TV shows as I did then.

Every Wednesday, in USA Today’s “Life” section (which was, oddly enough, not ever about life, but about on-screen adaptations of life), the Nielsen ratings were published, which is why I begged my Mom to get us a subscription to the not-so-revered daily paper and she eventually agreed. The Nielsen ratings were incredibly important to me because — and I’m sure this’ll shock your socks right off your feet — the shows I liked were always at risk of cancellation and the shows I hated seemed like they’d never end! I learned early that everything good gets cancelled and The Real L Word will never end.

Lots of popular shows ended their runs in ’94 and ’95, but today we will focus on those that NEVER EVEN GOT STARTED! Shows that were never given a chance to shine! Let me share my abandonment issues with you in hopes you remember at least one of these shows so their spirit LIVES ON. Honestly if just one of you remembers Thea, I’ll probably do a celebration dance of some kind in my room.

Top Ten TV Shows Prematurely Cancelled in the Mid-’90s

[in no particular order]

10. Thea

(ABC, 1993 -1994, 19 episodes)

Thea was the first sitcom named after an African-American female comedian (Thea Turrell) and was the first show to feature Brandy Norwood, who went on to become a big bright shining star. My primary memory of this show is that Thea yelled at her kids a lot but it was way funnier than when Moms yelled at their kids in real life.

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9. The Cosby Mysteries

(NBC, 1994-1995, 20 episodes)

Bill Cosby starred as a New York City criminalist who won the lottery and quit the force, but keeps getting roped in to solve additional crimes with his old partner. Also starring Mos Def and Rita Moreno. That’s a formula for a hit if I ever heard one but apparently America disagreed.

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8. All-American Girl

(ABC, 1994-1995, 19 episodes)

Margaret Cho became the lead of the first sitcom ever about an Asian-American family. Anyone who has heard Cho’s stand-up knows now that the producers made her basically starve to death in order to be “TV-ready.” The Grandma, who I’m sure fits into a damaging stereotype of some kind, was my favorite. BD Wong was my second favorite.

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7. Christy

(CBS, 1994-1995, 21 episodes)

This show combined many of my favorite things: the prairie, Kellie Martin, and Women Making it For Themselves. Apparently it had some religious undertones but I think I had a crush on Kellie Martin and didn’t care.

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6. The Critic

(ABC, 1994, 13 episodes) (Fox, 1995, 10 episodes)

This show became a bit of a cult hit via syndication long after its initial run. I remember a joke we repeated a lot about silverware being on the ceiling. The movie review parts were boring, but it made me LOL about 300x more than Futurama ever did.

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5. Me and the Boys

(ABC, 1994-1995, 19 episodes)

Before Steve Harvey became the problematic pusher of the idea that smart, successful black women need to lower their standards or else die miserably alone, he had a sitcom called Me and the Boys which nobody I knew liked except ME. Usually Steve Harvey was disciplining his rascally offspring, which as aforementioned is one of my favorite tropes.

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4. Dinosaurs

(ABC, 4 seasons/65 episodes, 1991 – 1994)

Dinosaurs was the first sitcom my brother and I were allowed to watch, because it starred muppets, I believe, was created by Jim Henson just before he died, and was also actually a really smart show with lots of secret social commentary. It was cancelled for mysterious reasons and then all the dinosaurs went extinct.

Even though this apparently lasted for four seasons, I seem to remember it being cancelled out of the blue in a way that really hit me over the head with a frying pan!

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3. South Central

(Fox, 1994, 10 episodes)

Going into the Spring 1994 television season, South Central was exceedingly revered as the year’s best new show. Focused on an African-American single Mom and her three children living in South Central Los Angeles, the show starred Larenz Tate (who I had a crush on) and tackled issues like drugs, gang violence, welfare, divorce, absentee fathers, unemployment, teen sex, etc. Due to low ratings on Tuesday nights, Fox went ahead and cancelled its entire Tuesday night lineup, which included Roc, The Sinbad Show (which I also liked) and In Living Color (which I wasn’t allowed to watch). Then Jesse Jackson wanted everyone to boycott Fox for institutional racism and Fox was like NUH-UH. Ralph Farquhar, the show’s creator, went on to “make it” with his next sitcom, Moesha. It was less “gritty.” “Throughout my entire career I’ve only had one goal, one motivation,” he told The New York Times. “To bring an honest portrayal to the life I live to the screen: to the small screen.”

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2. Thunder Alley

(ABC, 1994-1995, 27 episodes)

Before Haley Joel Osment saw dead people and Tao Lin, he saw Ed Asner. I was a sucker for anything with an adorable sassy child in it, such as Full House, Boy Meets World, The Cosby Show, Hangin’ With Mr.Cooper and Thunder Alley.

Riese is the 34-year-old CEO, CFO and Editor-in-Chief of Autostraddle.com as well as an award-winning writer, blogger, fictionist, copywriter, video-maker and aspiring cyber-performance artist who grew up in Michigan, lost her mind in New York City and mellowed out in California before returning to the Detroit area to be a grown-up. Her work has appeared in nine books including "The Bigger the Better The Tighter The Sweater: 21 Funny Women on Beauty, Body Image & Other Hazards Of Being Female," magazines including Marie Claire and Curve, and all over the web including Nerve, Bitch, Emily Books and Jezebel. She had a very popular personal blog once upon a time, and then she recapped The L Word, and then she had the idea to make this place, and now here we all are! Follow her on twitter and instagram.

I met Jane Espenson last weekend at a queer comic/sci-fi convention! She was so cool/smart/funny.

I have no further comment to make as I don’t think any of these series other than MSCL made it to the UK. I was racking my brain for UK equivalents but the whole cancellation thing doesn’t really apply as much because our TV dramas don’t tend to go on for years and years, except soaps and Dr Who.

YES!
for a short period of time I thought this might just have happened in my head and there is no show nor catch phrase like it. people looked weird at me when I tossed in “nicht die mama!” at (in)appropriate times….
but now I remember superRLT played ‘die dinos’ ALL THE TIME…

I disagree. I thought this article was interesting because is showed the large number of minority led shows that were created and canceled in a brief period of time, which may help explain the hesitancy to create minority led television today.

The superheros at Autostraddle work extra hard to write a BUNCH OF STUFF every day so there will be stuff everybody is interested in reading. That means sometimes there will be stuff that you are not interested in that other people are interested in.

You know what you do with that stuff?

You don’t read it. Nobody is making you. Go find something more relevant to your interests instead of complaining about a thing you happened to find boring.

anything at all about video games, politics outside of FEMINISM~~*~*~**~~*~*~, any alternate views to feminism, TV shows that aren’t absolutely fucking terrible, music that isn’t disgustingly and try-hard indie or lady gaga… never mentioned on here?????? i’m going to venture a guess and say any of the things mentioned in that paragraph might interest more people than I LIKE LESS WELL KNOWN SHOWS THAN YOU DO

Hi! We always appreciate feedback about what you’d like to see us writing, but we ask you to share them in the space we have specifically set aside for that on the website, which is this group to share thoughts or complaints. When you decide to use article comments as spaces to complain about the site in general, it takes away from the experience of people who wanted to talk about the article itself. Thanks!

i think anyone should be able to post whatever wherever on website, if what they write is something you don’t agree with the either respond or don’t, they’re comments, no? comments can lead to conversations or they can be just comments, so whatever. but at the very least so everyone can see.

And honestly, if you want to read some politics that aren’t about feminism, why come on a site for queer ladies? Unless your argument against feminism is that it’s non-inclusive to queer women, to WOC, or to folks outside the gender binary (all logical criticisms), I get that. But even then, Autostraddle is one of the best sites for providing a converse look at feminism through the eyes of queer women, women of color, and most gender expressions under the sun, so that’s really not a valid complaint. I think Fox News might have what you’re looking for.

As for the “Glee” criticisms, yeah, it’s not a good show. Do you think anyone here seriously acts like it is? Read the re-cap for “I Kissed a Girl” and then tell me whether or not anyone actually likes the show. It’s more than that – it’s one of the FEW television shows on now with an actual lesbian relationship being portrayed. The way that relationship/Santana’s journey is portrayed says a lot about how our society sees us queer ladies and stands for the media representation of us as a whole. It’s not pretty, but it speaks volumes. Those recaps approach the episodes critically while making it a lighthearted thing, which is a blessing when there are episodes like “I Kissed a Girl” being produced. “Glee” is one of the few shows on TV that is trying to represent a lot of different types of people (and not doing a wonderful job of it), and yet it’s still so popular. That in itself is interesting.

I actually like Glee, in spite of the crummy writing. There’s something about it that makes me tune in every week, other than just the lesbian storyline. Possibly that’s Lea Michele’s legs. Possibly it’s just to watch actors try to act their way through crap writing without letting the pain show on their faces. Possibly because I can’t believe what a train wreck it’s becoming. Possibly all of the above.

That’s true, too, but I guess no one is actually saying it’s a GOOD show. Like, I’ve never heard someone say the words, “Glee is so well-written.” But yeah, they’ve hit some kind of gold mine of creating characters and grabbing actors that keep people coming back for more. Also Lea Michele’s legs and Dianna Agron’s voice.

I know, right? I was so disappointed when my copy of the gay agenda arrived in the mail and I got to the part where it said I had to read every single word of every single article posted to this site even when the topic didn’t interest me. 🙁

I AVOID them, I don’t pursue them so I can complain about how much I don’t like them. If the general tone of AS doesn’t appeal to you, I think there are some sites that would. I would encourage you to phrase your criticisms a little more politely, unless you’re so mad at being forced to read something you find a waste of your time that your rage cannot be contained.

Naw…..it wasn’t a lesbian rating for the music, just things I don’t like. I didn’t mean to offend you by pairing them together :o)

I know my lesbo street cred is suspect. I don’t like “The L word” or “The real L word” either and I’m not much of a fan of cats.
I probably shouldn’t admit this here but I’ve never seen any of the Star Wars movies. Or any Star Trek ones, except for the most recent ’cause a woman enticed me to. None of the “Lord of the Rings” either.

I’m still pretty confident I’m gay though, due to my dislike of having sex with men.

I would be willing to try the brussel sprouts again but like Star Trek, I’d have to be enticed.

I kinda like the fact that there are comments like this once in a while…criticism can be good.
but I’d like to criticize/question your criticism/every criticism I’ve seen on AS so far

1. does the username always has to reflect the message?
2. is the word ‘shit/shitty’ a must-have?
3. you think writing in caps proves your point?
4. what is it with the unnecessary overuse of “?”and/or “!”

1. yes
2. yes
3. no but i can’t help it
4. i get really excited and like talking like an over-expressive thirteen year old!!!!

oh and i like using the ~*~*~*~*~*~ when someone’s talkign about something ~*~really special and important~*~ like ~*~symbolism in fiction~*~ and stuff.

I really like Autostraddle — most of the time. It’s my go-to spot for queer news, and some of the other stuff posted here is pretty interesting. But I feel like though Autostraddle’s slogan is “You Do You”, they’re kind of saying “You Do You” within a particular framework of what they think a lesbian is. It’s the right celebrity crushes; it’s listening to the right indie bands, and the right top 40 stuff, with the right degree of irony; it’s liking certain shows. It’s being outspokenly feminist.

I hesitate to call myself a feminist, and not for the reasons Lora (who had the most well-articulated response to my obvious troll post, so thanks for that) mentioned. I have a problem with it because it seems needlessly angry about relatively simple things and it tends to hide behind buzzwords. My biggest example of this is “slut-shaming.” I agree with the concept — a women’s body is her body, and her decision — but I think feminists maybe take it too hard. Specifically, about victim blaming:

“A woman is not raped because she was drunk, or at a party. A woman is not raped because of what she was wearing. A woman is raped because a rapist raped her.”

I heard that quote in the documentary The Purity Myth, that’s what I remember the quote sounding like. It’s a good quote; I like it a lot. But let’s change the crime:

“A woman’s house is not robbed because she left it unlocked and made it obvious no one was home. A woman’s house is not robbed because you could see nice things in there from the window. A woman’s house is robbed because a robber robs it.”

It seems a little silly. I think that we all have the right to not be raped, and I agree that victim-blaming is bad. But victim-sympathy can go too far. In an ideal world, women should be able to go out, get fall-down drunk, stumble home alone at 3AM wearing four inch heels and a tight short dress. She should be able to be drunk around whoever she wants and not worry about being raped. It’s what’s right. But in an ideal world, we also wouldn’t have to lock our doors. Locking your doors is keeping yourself safe, and everyone has a responsibility to do their best to keep them, and their possessions, safe. Obviously, this is within reason. Women have the responsibility to make sure they are in a safe place, if they’re drunk, they’re doing it responsibly, and they don’t put themselves in intentionally vulnerable situations. I’m not saying they can never go out, get drunk, or have fun. With my robbing analogy, that’d be like never leaving the house, just sitting on your stoop with a shotgun. Not good! But women DO have a responsibility to keep themselves safe. It sucks, but it’s there. I feel a lot of mainstream feminism ignores that.

With slut-shaming, I feel it’s more of an angry shout than something people actually think about. Again, I agree in principle. But I don’t think some stupid catchphrase is going to change anything, and I don’t think “taking back the word slut” is going to do anything (and I find that whole idea a little silly!), and “slut-walks” are an absolutely absurd idea. They were relevant at York University, for obvious reason. But I feel their meaning has been lost. Instead of preaching, “Women should be allowed to feel sexually confident and let themselves define their sexuality, not men,” it seems to be preaching, “I’m gonna dress like a total slut for fun and do whatever I want and if you criticize me you’re a bad person.”

I also have a problem with the idea of patriarchy and male privilege. I understand our history; our society is dominated by men. But it’s such a small fraction of men that this really bothers me. It’s not men as a whole that put women down throughout history — it was the alpha-male type. And for men who don’t fit into that stereotype of an affluent, white, alpha-male (the alpha-male personality is key), the world can be very difficult. I think feminism doesn’t appreciate that enough, and would rather throw around the patriarchy/male privilege buzzwords.

Really, I’d just like to see more stuff on here I do care about (video games, technology, things about college/university, psychology, health (especially from an LGBT perspective), the music I like, the shows I like…) and less of stuff I don’t (cancelled TV shows from the mid-90s, Glee, ideology I disagree with). The way Autostraddle seems to force their PCness/inclusiveness on everyone also gets to me. Some of the NSFW Sunday articles look like children’s cereal commercials — get one of every colour in there, ladies! Make sure there’s a fat one, gotta fill our minority quotas.

I do love this site. It’s just easy to feel like I don’t fit in, even among queer women, because I feel like this site projects an image of what a lesbian is that I don’t fit into, at all.

I only have one response to your ideal world scenario of victim blaming/shaming, and I’m sharing it here because it was shared with me during a class discussion.
The part I’m talking about is “In an ideal world, women should be able to go out, get fall-down drunk, stumble home alone at 3AM wearing four inch heels and a tight short dress. She should be able to be drunk around whoever she wants and not worry about being raped.”
While that is an ideal world scenario, the reason women, or feminists I guess, get mad is this: In our world, a man is able to go out, get fall-down drunk, stumble home alone at 3 AM wearing clothes that are fashionable, that look good on him, and that are encouraged for his gender. He is able to be drunk around whoever he wants and is significantly less likely to have to worry about being raped.
I’m not trying to say men aren’t raped. But slut-shaming has a lot to do with social construction, and being perceived as open for business while wearing what is seen as attractive.

Your analogy is weak. What your quote (which I also like) pointed out is that not all men are rapists… it takes that special kind of fucked up dude to go rape a woman. It’s not really comparable to the fact that our economy sucks and a lot of people are desperate and tempted to rob a house for whatever reason.

Let’s change the crime one more time and consider pedophiles. Not all adults are pedophiles, but for the ones that are… it has very little to do with the child in specific. Victims of pedophiles often blame themselves as well, asking, “Why did [the perpetrator] pick me?” But the sad answer is, “Because you were there.”

No one is opposing the concept that women have a responsibility to keep themselves safe, what they oppose is the notion that rape is somehow justified because you were dressed slutty/drunk/walking home/whatever. I personally oppose the sentiment of, “Well! What did you expect!?” Because it almost seems to excuse/lessen the heinous nature of the crime. The concept that men cannot control themselves when they see the least bit of skin is outdated and archaic and I would be willing to bet that if we could compare rape statistics over the centuries, that they probably haven’t changed all that much from times when it was indecent to show even shoulders. My opinion is that assault victims have enough self shame, we don’t need to add that little extra salt on the wound.

hilary! riese and i are both around your age, silly. you’re not old, you’re just not young.

also everyone please stop replying to trolls. it’s like feeding a stray cat. i know it’s hard not to, because they make it so. fucking. easy. but you have to ignore them, for the sake of everyone else who doesn’t like cat poop.

I’m sorry. I really shouldn’t have replied, but something about the “the audience of this site was 2-8 when these shows came out” comment really got to me. I honestly don’t feel old, like, ever. I was just sick today and wanted to tell all the kids to get out of my yard.

I also found out that an ex-Mormon lesbian friend of a friend is in the ICU tonight after a suicide attempt. My heart is very sore. I’m sorry I let my feelings affect my judgment and lashed out here.

obviously if some of the writers in their fucking 30’s their “target” audience is wider then what you THINK you know it is. you are an asshole of the worst order. and what is your freaking problem with diversity?

When I was three or four, I had a terrifying nightmare featuring the dinosaurs from Dinosaurs and that morning I made a vow never to sleep again, which was broken approximately an hour past bedtime that night.

Me too! Sort of like the Narnia books – I chose to overlook the implied Christianity because there was something else compelling about it. Narnia = cool fantasy alternate world. Christy = hot chicks on the prairie.

twenty episodes is still a decent amount of tv time, so if something looks interesting I will totes look it up and watch it on the internet illegally and then make obscure references to it because I am just that cool. like all american girl looks interesting especially since margaret cho a lot

Christy was excellent television, but she was no Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, that’s for sure.

Also, Dinosaurs was the best. My entire family was obsessed. You know that part in the first Harry Potter movie where the boy blows himself up a bit in charms class? The first time my mom saw that she yelled “WE’RE GOING TO NEED ANOTHER TIMMY!” Please tell me someone else understands this reference.

Oh the dangers of science. To this day I make Timmy jokes – and honestly I didn’t remember why I use “Timmy” as the punchline for when things go horribly, hilariously wrong – until you reminded me with your comment.

gosh the show dinosaurs. my sis, brother and I would watch this show religiously in kenya. We had no idea about TV cancellations. Its only till we came abroad that we learnt about why a show abruptly ends. We just thought that our tv stations couldn’t afford them. You rock AS, I am waiting to read about the little mermaid, and the awesome movie Anastasia.(huge crush on her)

I remember watching Dinosaurs dubbed in Spanish when I was a child. The baby screaming “mala mama!” was also a thing, and I feel like my mom still says it sometimes, lol.
Also, I always found them scary and a little disturbing. Were they this way for everyone?

YES SO SCARY. I mean, my whole family watched it and sometimes I liked the jokes, but the whole aesthetic was pretty gross and dark and creepy and I hated the catchphrases and the violence. Also my younger sister was of an age to repeat the Baby’s catchphrases ad nauseam, PLUS she had the talking doll that also repeated all the catchphrases when you pulled a string. It was a weird time for tv.

(Riese, I think our prime sitcom-watching years were about the same — for me, the family tv hour pantheon also included Sister Sister, Third Rock from the Sun, Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper, and Tool Time, as I recall. I remember All American Girl and it seemed maybe too old for me; hard as an 8-year-old to get into shows without kids. Except Fraser. My dorky-ass self loved Fraser. Also, Thunder Alley! Who knew I’d ever have reason to remember that extremely forgettable show.)

Oh i was WAY into Sister Sister and Third Rock From the Sun. By “Tool Time” do you mean Home Improvement? I loved that too espesh since it was in Detroit and starred my lesbian-ish boifriend jonathan taylor thomas.

i watched Hangin’ With Mr.Cooper too, because it had a sassy youngster in it and was part of TGIF for a while, i think

I remember the episode when the teen son wanted to eat veggies and everyone was like wtf!?! I remember feeling that I could relate to him on how I felt about girls..wait I think I am making a connection, no, I just think everything is gay. But dammit that show really had some interesting topics that were disguised a funny dinosaur life-society.

Dinosaurs was one of those shows that I only saw sporadically when I was young, then years later I’d sort of remember it, but it was so weird I’d wonder if that ever actually happened. Like, maybe I dreamed it.

Does anyone remember The Road Home? It was on for one season in ’94. I was so bummed when it was cancelled. Why CBS, why? (I honestly can’t recall the plot now except there was a cute girl a little older than me who seemed “really cool”).

Aww, damn, you’re right. Well at least I inadvertently reminded everyone that Dorothy Jane Torkelson had awesome hair and everyone should have a window seat where they sit and talk to the man in the moon.

Dinosaurs is permanently associated with Canada and my grandparents in my head. I don’t know if I ever even saw it in the US, all I remember is that every time we visited the grandparents in Canada it was on and I was obsessed with watching it. But let’s be honest, I was seriously obsessed with dinosaurs as a kid (I would try and dig up fossils in the back yard).

I started watching this show with my baby-sitter each morning during the summer. It is one of the “tragedies” of my life that it was prematurely cancelled – particularly before Christy and Neil ever got any real action.

They did do those TV movies, but Lauren Lee Smith, as much as I loved her in The L Word, was a poor substitute for Kelli Martin.

I still have that doll. I can’t have it at my house since it simultaneously amuses me and creeps me out. If I had access to it 24/7 I’d probably go insane and break it after hearing not the momma for the millionth time. In a stroke of genius I convinced my mom it will undoubtedly be a collectors item one day an it was better entrusted in her care. Thus I visit it twice a year when I see my family.

I don’t remember any of these but Dinosaur, and I wish I didn’t. o.o I was very young when that show was on, and the loud, screaming baby terrified me to no end (just like anything loud did and does). Unfortunately, either my mom or my sister really enjoyed that show (or my reaction to it– apparently I can be really funny when I’ horrified :/) because it was on a lot.

Riese, every time you write about something related to Jim Henson/the Muppets, you make my heart sparkle. Dinosaurs was awesome. “Not the mama!” and Baby’s song (“I’m the baby, gotta love me…”) have been a part of my familial lexicon since the show originally aired.

On a side note, I’m pretty sure there are enough fantastic Jim Henson productions that were cancelled prematurely to justify an entire post. I just looked up The Storyteller to see if it fits into the time constraints of this post, but it was on in 1988. (I’m also not sure how exactly I remembered it from childhood; I was two when it was on TV. Either my mother was so awesome she taped every episode of the first season, or my first memories are of that show. Both seem plausible.)

Dinosaurs! Yes! And My So Called Life and Thea and All American Girl. This list both made my day and made me exceptionally sad.

Pertaining to Dinosaurs though, I seriously had no clue that it went on for four seasons. All I remember is having a vhs of some movie, which may or may not have been Super Mario Brothers, starting off with an episode of the show.

It’s times like these I wonder if they ever bothered releasing these shows on dvd.

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